SB Live! 24-Bit Internal Problems

I'd like to say a quick thanks for me being redirected here first off.

Now; I've just updated to VISTA and I'm having problems getting my sound to work - like so many other people tend to be doing.

I've tried the older Creative drivers, I've tried a number of older drivers I found on my system as well as some NForce drivers.

Then I stumbled upon the entry on Neosmart talking about how to fix this problem. I've tried everything it suggests and I've got nowhere. The Realtek AC97 drivers won't even install at all. I've tried the 'be patient' line and got nowhere, after more than 30 minutes they've gone nowhere.

I think that's just about everything important. It'd be nice if someone has a suggestion on how to get my sound working - it's a big part of the reason I use a PC and it's becoming a pain having to boot into XP to listen to my music.

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: The AERO Interface has somehow disappeared this morning too. I no longer get the preview of a window when hovering over the taskbar and all my windows are fully opaque, despite having Aero active when I first installed Vista last night.

My speakers will take both signals - I'm assuming they're set to analogue for the simplicity of it - it's a much easier signal to get working.

I was running the Realtek drivers before - since Creative offer such a pathetic excuse for them. I've also tried the Music/Video drivers, the Gamers one had a lower filesize and I assumed something was missing from them.

I'll give the Ngo drivers another go and report back with another edit in a few minutes.

I've tried the modded Ngo drivers again - it turns out they were still on my system and they needed uninstalling. I'd done that, restarted the system, reinstalled, restarted again and still nothing. It keeps saying the drivers are not installed - even when trying to start their control panel (from the start menu - provided with their drivers).

It's a very odd problem.

As for the Realtek drivers on XP - they came pre-loaded on my system (Compaq Presario - was cheaper than buying all the parts separate at the time) so I just popped in my SB card and it's been running on those drivers ever since. That's been on a full 96khz too.

I've installed the drivers you suggested, restarted my computer and not even got the error message at startup.

What Vista is failing to recognise, is the fact that there's a driver there at all. It's completely ignoring any audio drivers that I attempt to install and they're just being copied to my system and never put into use.

The audio options says 'no audio devices are installed'. Even using the Device Manager to add the hardware it just tags it as a 'Multimedia Audio Controller' and then fails to detect the drivers even when pointed to the right location.

This is becoming extremely frustrating as I know your solutions are correct, and that the drivers are correct and in-place. Any more ideas? Please?

EDIT: I'm re-downloading VISTA in the hopes that there's a problem with my original install. I'm going to try both 32-bit and 64-bit versions and perhaps I can get one audio driver working on one of them. Here's hoping.

I'll post a full reply when I've tried both versions again and let you know if it's a problem confined to either one.

Instead of using Device Manager to point it to a driver location, use the advanced settings and tell it you want to manually select a browser, that you have the disk, and then point it straight to the inf file itself (not the directory, but the driver).

I've tried the kX drivers, the Creative drivers and the Ngo drivers. I'm having the same problem in that they are still not being recognised by the O/S.

I'd already tried using the .inf file to locate the drivers - but when I try that the O/S goes through the whole install process and then simply says that the file could not be found, which is entirely strange because the files are right where I put them. I'm going to manually check through the .inf file and make sure it's whole.

Any more suggestions? I'm at an end myself. I've tried everything I know.

It was a bit of backwards-ness that allowed me to locate this solution.

It's Vista that can't ID the soundcard in a PCI slot. To solve this you can download the Vista drivers from Creative's site.

Here's the summary;

Install the kX drivers.
Restart.
Install the Creative Vista Beta drivers (they're outdated but nevermind).
Restart.
You should now have sound on a SoundBlaster series card.

It won't support Microphone Gain though - so no 20db boost unfortunately. At least Vista recognises sounds better than XP, so the 20db boost shouldn't matter at all.

This solution worked on x86 (32-bit VISTA), but I assume it'll work with the x64 (64-bit VISTA) too, assuming you have 64-bit compatible drivers, though the Creative ones should negate the 64-bit issue.

Perhaps this should be added to the guide? I tried uninstalling the sound drivers deliberately and then went through the same process again, and it worked again. Tried and tested I reckon.

Thanks for listening, and thanks for all the help.

EDIT: It's the Nvidia Vista Beta drivers that cause Aero to stop functioning. They'll boost game performance under Vista but they won't allow you to use Aero - not that it's a big hit anyway. Another quick note - if you have XP installed, and you've installed applications/games to XP, and then switch to Vista, just give yourself full sharing rights to the drive, and you can play your games/use your applications without having to reinstall them under Vista. And another quick note - if you run a driver installer under compatability mode for XP SP2, some XP drivers will work - the PhysX ones work perfectly fine in hardware mode if you do that. Hope this has helped.

Assuming you're also using a SoundBlaster Live! 24-bit Internal, I'd suggest opening up your PC and taking out the SoundBlaster, booting up without the card in and then turn off once more and replace the card.

It could be the ID on the device itself that's not registering with Vista.

Yes I am using a soundblaster live! 24-bit internal but I also have a "High Definition Audio device" installed that I assumed was my motherboard (foxconn 945g7ma) onboard sound card, but that doesnt even detect as an output device. http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a9/firomix/vistaproblem.jpg is a screenshot of my desktop with device manager up and trying to "Update driver software" of Sound Blaster live! 24-Bit

Allright I tried it in safemode and it didn't fix the problem but I went into the advanced options of vista (on bootup) and allowed unsigned drivers to run on loadup, that seems to have fixed it and thanks for the help